Someone! Help me!

I think I'm going to need an intervention. It seems that I've become a computer game playing nerd. I'm afraid that if something isn't done soon that my apartment will never be clean again and we'll be reduced to a diet of Doritos and Chinese delivery.

It snuck up on me quietly. Isn't that how all addictions start? I've always played games online - mah jong, Spades, Slingo, all that jazz at boxerjam.com. And I've played PC games as well - Monopoly, Anno 1602, You Don't Know Jack, Shivers (sadly I've played that game so many times I can go through the whole thing in about 45 minutes - I memorized the walk-through) and a few other things - but I've always managed to keep my game playing obsessions in check.

About 10 months ago B got the game Sacred and he's crazy about that game. Plays nearly every day and never gets tired of it. Some of that has to do with the fact that it can be played online as well so you never run out of things to do. He'd been trying to get me to try the game but I kept begging off. I didn't think I'd enjoy it and I thought it was so much of a "boy's" game for me.

Does this not sound vaguely like getting a girly-girl to start drinking beer?

Finally I said that I'd do it - I'd give it a whirl to mostly see what all the fuss is about and then after I'd given it a decent go I could say it wasn't for me.

Oh how I wish I could say that's how it turned out. Instead I was introduced to what has turned out for me to be the crack cocaine of PC gaming.

In the game the roll I have to play is a forest elf and my goal is to shoot a lot of bad monsters with my kick-ass bow and fulfill quests. My side goal is to find or buy the cutest possible oufits for my elf that not only make me look good but also will help me to fend off the zombies and orks and dragons and giant spiders.

Conversations with B now inevitably turn to Sacred strategy comparisons. Discussing which special abilities we like for our weapons to have. Considering the possiblity of buying a new computer now instead of this fall because the game doesn't run the best on my computer and B and I can't use his at the same time to play.

I have dreamed about this game. Every. Single. Night.

Someone get the Betty Ford Clinic on the phone...